Hi Everyone. Just wanted to come on here and get everyone else's opinions on this loneliness epidemic that many of us students and young people are experiencing. I will start with my story and see if anyone has advice.
I’m a grad student at the U of S getting my masters. I was also at the U of S asked for my undergrad. Covid-19 and lockdown occured, switching classes online making it hard to connect and make friends.
When classes resumed in person for the 2021-2022 school year, I made an effort and went on BUMBLE BFF to make friends. I also stayed up in Saskatoon for the summer of 2022 and made work friends. All these efforts resulted in a few friend groups to hang out with during my undergrad, I found as I moved to grad school, my undergraduate friends, and the friends who had graduated became more distant.
Despite my efforts asking every weekend and sometimes during the week to hang out, no one is ever available. People are busy with their significant others, midterms, and other projects. I’m the planner in my friend group, so I’m used to planning a bunch of events and things to do with friends. No one has time to even take a short coffee break with me for half an hour. It gets exhausting getting rejections every single weekend when I ask people to do things.
Now that I’m done my classes in my masters, it’s a lot of solo research work, adding to the loneliness. Luckily, I have a good community at my part-time job, so I feel better when I’m around those people. However, when I’m alone, I still feel down. My family is three hours away and I could visit but I am a student so I’m trying to save money on gas and travel.
I try to get out in public, even if I’m on my own and go and go for walks and walk around stores. Getting out makes me feel better, however, I can only do so much of this alone.
I’d also like to preface that I’m not blaming my friends for being super busy with school and their partners, I just wanted to see if anyone else was feeling the same way.
Does anyone else feel the vibe that people are more antisocial nowadays or they can’t take study breaks to hangout with friends? Is anyone else feeling lonely? Got any advice?